


Love and War

by Synthtraitor



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, description of a battle field, minor character death (off screen)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23599441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synthtraitor/pseuds/Synthtraitor
Summary: “(Y/N),” your name is whispered once against your lips, with an undertone of worry and care so gentle you feel as if it could shatter you. You are called ‘general’ and ‘sir’ and only sometimes, “(Y/N),” it pulls the breath from your lungs.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Reader, Padmé Amidala/You
Kudos: 23





	Love and War

War is different when you have millions of disposable troops at your fingertips, when it spans a galaxy. It’s not like anything you’ve read in any book, it’s not like anything you were prepared for. 

You remember summer months spent on a planet with wide, sandy beaches as a padawan. Even though there was a civil war pouring across the world, the violence never really hit you in the same way. You spent evenings watching the sun set, and then the brilliant flashes of plasma bolts in a valley, and you remember thinking, morbidly, how beautiful life and death and the force can all be, even at their worst. 

On the battlefield, each life is like a tiny, precious flame: Put out by a shift in the air, and you knew that then, and you finally, truly, understand it now.

The smell of singed and melting plastoid are constant companions. The tang of blood, and the aftertaste of whatever new, life-ending gas the Separatists have cooked up follow you to your bed and stain your sheets. When you wash the death from your face, alone in your quarters after a firestorm, it tastes like black earth and the salt of your own sweat.

Now, the atmosphere is whipping at your face. Despite slowing your descent with the use of the force, you hit the ground hard with the rest of your drop troopers. Already, the battle is in full tilt, the earth churned underfoot and blaster bolts zipping overhead.

The separatist droids quickly notice your arrival, and then a volley bright red bolts land in the dirt around you and bounce off the phase two armor your squadron is equipped with. You hold steady, surveying the field, and then your eyes slink to the biggest threat on the battlefield: a tank rushing Jedi Master Aayla’s clone legion. Your captain crouches at your right hand, and you notice him watching the tank as well. 

“You boys flank,” you say, and when he nods affirmative, you bunch yourself up on your haunches, flick your lightsaber on, then take a single, massive leap towards the tank, furious eyes fixed on the single command droid sitting halfway out of the trap door on the roof. It notices you, flails, and then the tank’s barrels are swinging around to greet you.

When you’re hurtling towards uncertain death, you think of nights spent watching battles, you think of your soldiers, and you think of Padmé. 

You think of her, until the thoughts are ripped from your head when you feel the force, a twisted, ugly kind, curl around you and drag you to the ground.

You hit the ground hard.

“(Y/N),” your name is whispered once against your lips, with an undertone of worry and care so gentle you feel as if it could shatter you. You are called ‘general’ and ‘sir’ and only sometimes, “(Y/N),” it pulls the breath from your lungs. Warm, brown eyes flutter open to meet yours, and you’re so close you can feel the flutter of eyelashes on your skin, gentle like the Naboo breeze. 

“... Shit,” you can’t help but swear, coming back to yourself. Her voice calls to attention the tears you now feel on your face, and so you quickly pull away from Padmé to scrub them off. Unable to look her in the eyes, you pause with your face in your hands and shudder when you realize you can’t stop crying. 

“... (Y/N).” 

You shake your head. You never did stop that tank.

She takes your hands in her own and gently reveals your guilt-ridden face. She presses two gentle kisses to the apples of your cheeks, then one on the bridge of your nose, and two more to your closed eyelids. 

Finally, she presses a selfless kiss to your lips and asks, “are you okay?” 

You smell smoke, and you see the glow of a battlefield, and your heart beats with the thud of heavy footsteps approaching your prone form. You watch with blurry eyes as red death appears above you, hatred in its heavy gaze.

You find yourself unable to be strong around her, not when you’re tucked away in her apartment, the blinds drawn and the lighting soft and waning. You imagine what it would be like to feel Coruscant quiver under an invasion: Millions of windows shattering, the glass falling floors and floors below to the planet’s dead core. Padmé rubs circles in front of your ear with her thumb and it brings you back to the present.

You sniff, and lean forward, unable to do anything else as she welcomes you into her embrace. “‘M fine now,” you manage to mumble because she smells like fruit trees by the ocean and soft-petaled flowers, like a perfect, white beach from childhood.

She shifts on top of her expensive sheets to better hold you, then runs a hand up the curve of your spine. “Are you sure?” 

You try not to be too ashamed of the silent tremble in your hands as you pull at her nightgown. From the cracks in the blinds, the bright night tries to bleed into her bedroom. The shadows wander against the far wall, but their shapes aren’t threatening. 

You can still taste the air, heavy with metal and blood, as you sit and push your senses across the battlefield in search of survivors. You can still feel the tired and wary stares of the last of the 327th clone legion on your back as you pull a downed shuttle off your captain while he stutters his last breaths. You can still hear the empty echo of your lone boots as you return to the barracks on your star destroyer, and you can still see the red glow of a not-lightsaber when you close your eyes, but you let out a shaky, uneven breath and say anyways, “I’m sure.” 


End file.
